“I’m far from that, but I see you . . .” I narrowed my eyes and thought about an image of Imogen against the ruined castle. That would have been ideal, but there were other places that I could use. “Oh! Gretl told me about this haunted forest near here—”
“No!” Imogen all but squawked, drawing attention from the people moving past us. She shot them a reassuring smile before turning it on me. “I’m so sorry. You must think me terribly emotional, but if you are talking about the Shey Woods, then I must again say no. It is not a good place, that forest. I will not step foot in it again.”
“I’m so sorry; I didn’t mean to suggest somewhere that would make you feel uncomfortable.” I thought for a moment. “I don’t really know many places around here, but surely there must be some other location we can use that would give the same sense of—oh, I don’t know—something otherworldly.”
“Otherworldly? Yes, of course I can do that.” She shot me a startled glance that quickly turned speculative, then amused, as if we shared a secret, something that struck me as hugely odd. I had only just met her—how could we share a secret? When Gretl turned to greet an acquaintance who had called her name, Imogen leaned over to me, saying with a little nod at Gretl’s back, “I had no idea you were not mundane.”
“Er . . .” Mundane? Was she making a dig at Gretl? I bristled righteously in defense of a much-loved cousin. “I’ve always thought of myself as something . . . different, but just because Gretl chose a more traditional path in life doesn’t mean she’s not a wonderful person.”
“Of course she’s wonderful. She’s been my friend for many years.” Imogen smiled and squeezed my arm briefly. “And we all feel different at some time or other, don’t we? At least until we settle in with our own kind. But who exactly are you? I realize it is rude to just come right out and ask you, but I’m sure you do not wish to speak of your true nature in front of dear Gretl.”
I blinked at her, once again taken aback and unsure of how to respond, but luckily Gretl finished her chat and turned back to us, so I was content to simply smile in answer to Imogen’s wink, and made a mental note to ask Gretl or her daughter to accompany me on the photo shoot. It was becoming clear that Imogen was a few apples shy of spiced cider.
“Oh, there is Benedikt and Fran. Come. I must introduce you both to them. Benedikt will be delighted to see you again, Gretl.”
I followed as Imogen bustled off with Gretl in tow over to where a tall man with shoulder-length black hair stood with a woman who was almost as tall as he was. The woman, who faced me, looked to be in her early twenties.
“Well, now, that’s interesting,” I murmured to myself, eyeing the woman named Fran. No matter how good Imogen looked, she had to be nearing fifty for Gretl to have known her for thirty years. Which meant her brother was either older than he looked, or he was a whole lot younger than Imogen. “Even if there is a big age difference,” I said as I strolled toward them, “he would be close to my age.”
And yet his wife was probably twenty-two or -three. I glanced at Gretl as the couple stepped forward to greet her. A puzzled frown pulled her brows together for an instant before she smiled, quickly returning to her usual charming self. When the man turned to greet me, I saw why Gretl had frowned. I stared at him for a moment, unable to believe what I was seeing. He was in his mid- to late twenties, at least ten years younger than me, which meant Imogen was old enough to be his mother. Not an unknown situation, but not a common one, either. I realized that everyone was staring at me as I gawked so obviously at Imogen’s handsome, much, much younger brother, and I pulled my wits together.
“Sorry,” I murmured, shaking first his hand, then Fran’s. She gave me an amused glance before leaning into her husband, her arm around his waist in a possessive move that I’d have had to be blind to miss.
I chuckled to myself, wanting to assure her that I might be single and not averse to finding a man, but I wasn’t about to stoop to husband stealing and cradle robbing. “It’s a pleasure to meet you both,” I murmured.
“Iolanthe wishes to take my picture tomorrow,” Imogen told her brother. “She is a photographer. She wishes to take me somewhere otherworldly.”
The emphasis Imogen put on the word seemed to have some meaning for them, because they both raised their eyebrows for a few seconds. Ben slid a gaze to Gretl before returning it to me, saying in a low voice that couldn’t have been heard by anyone but his wife and me, “Are you with the Court of Divine Blood? I don’t recognize what you are, but I’m not very familiar with members of the Court.”
“I’m a woman,” I answered, ironically echoing Imogen’s words as I moved a few steps away from him. Clearly there was some sort of mental instability in Imogen’s family.
“Yes, of course you are,” Fran said with a comforting smile that I didn’t for one minute buy. Ben turned to answer a question Gretl asked him, leaving Fran chatting with me in a low voice. “What Ben meant was what are you? You’re not a therion or a Guardian or a Summoner. I’ve seen those, and you don’t look like them.”
“I used to be an accountant,” I told her, feeling that diplomacy was going to be my best bet if I wanted to get pictures of Imogen. It wouldn’t do to offend any of Imogen’s family by calling them crackpots. “But Barry, my boss, kept hitting on me, and when I tried to turn him in, he got me fired. Illegal and reprehensible, but true.”
“No, I meant—” Fran stopped talking when Gretl turned back to us.
“Io, you don’t mind that Imogen has asked me to sit with her for an hour or so while she reads the rune stones, do you?”
“Not at all. I’ll just wander around the fair and see the sights.”
“We’ll take care of your cousin,” Fran told Gretl as we moved off. I couldn’t help but notice that Fran wore a pair of long black lace gloves that disappeared into her shirt cuffs. “We’ll show you around and introduce you to all the people who work here. You might find someone you’d like to photograph in addition to Imogen, you know. There are lots of interesting folks. My mother is— Ratsbane! What’s he doing here?”
Fran had been steering me down the center aisle when she suddenly froze and glared to the side, where a blond man with a short goatee was strolling toward us. The man also froze when he caught sight of us, an expression of joy on his face as he waved an arm in the air and bellowed, “Goddess Fran! We have returned!”
“I thought you said they’d gone back to Valhalla?” Ben asked in a tight, low voice.
“They had. Dammit, they promised me they wouldn’t come back until I asked for their help again. . . . Excuse me a minute, Io. I have to deal with an old . . . friend. . . .”
She hurried off to the blond man, who was joined by two others, all of whom enveloped Fran in a group bear hug with cries of, “Goddess!”
“Oh, Christ, not all three,” Ben said, rubbing a hand over his eyes.
“You don’t have to escort me around the fair, you know. I’m quite capable of trotting around by myself.”
“I’d much rather show you around than deal with those three lunatics,” he said, nodding toward the nearest booth. “What would you like to see first? I can’t vouch for the tattooing, but the demonologist is a friend of mine and can be quite interesting if he’s holding a private group session.”
“I’m fine just people watching, if truth be told,” I said politely, the hairs on the back of my neck standing on end. The words “demonologist” and “private session” just seemed like an incredibly bad juxtaposition. “People are so fascinating if you have the time to really study them.”
“True words. I won’t ask you any more about yourself since I’m sure Imogen will pump you for all the information you’re willing to divulge,” he said, laughter rich in his voice as we moved on at a slow amble. “My sister appreciates people watching, as well. Some might call her nosy, but in reality she just likes mortals.”
Keep in the open, I told myself. Stay around other people. Do not, under any circumstances, go off a
nywhere alone with this bizarre man. “I really am not all that interesting, I assure you. I do feel bad about my horrible foot-in-mouth disease with Imogen, though.”
He paused in front of a booth dedicated to personal time travel, shooting me a curious look. “Pardon?”
I made a little face. “I said I wanted to take photos of Imogen at the place your father met his end.”
“My father?” Ben blinked. “My father is in South America.”
“Oh, I’m sorry.” A blush warmed my face as I realized that once again I’d verbally embarrassed myself. “I thought you and Imogen had the same father.”
“We do. He’s in Brazil, I believe. Or Argentina. Somewhere with lots of nearly naked young women and a high level of debauchery.”
I stared at him in incomprehension. “He’s not dead?”
“No.” He leaned in close and said in a low voice, “My father is a Dark One. He can’t die unless someone goes to quite a bit of trouble, and I can assure you that no one has done that in several centuries.”
“Several centuries,” I repeated, just as if that weren’t the least bit startling, although, of course, my brain was screaming at me to run far, far away from the crazy man.
And then the thought hit me—what if Imogen and her brother were having me on? What if they were teasing me, the ignorant little American tourist? What if they were waiting to see me freak out, whereupon they’d all have a good giggle at my expense?
The bastards. I wouldn’t give them the pleasure!
“Well . . . three hundred? That seems about right. I think it was in 1708 that he flipped out. So three hundred and four years.”
I may not have had a lot of pride left that wasn’t in tatters after the smear campaign by Barry of the Many Hands, but what I did have I gathered around me. “Oh, that kind of Dark One. I thought you meant the . . . um . . . non-three-hundred-year type.”
He looked at me as if potatoes had started a cabaret act on my head. “The what?”
“You know, the kind that aren’t around for three hundred years.”
I think the potatoes may have begun a trapeze act, because the look he gave me was one of utter incredulity. That killed my idea of his pulling my leg—people who were teasing you seldom bore that sort of expression when you sussed out what it was they were doing.
“You did say three hundred years, didn’t you?” I asked, suddenly worried that I misheard him. Maybe he had every right to look at me as if I was the odd one.
“Yes.” He continued to eye me. “My father is actually older than three hundred years. He’s . . . Let me see. I’m three hundred and nineteen, which means he must be around three hundred and forty. Or three hundred and forty-two. Somewhere in that range.”
What do you say to a man who claims he’s over three hundred years old? I don’t know what you would say, but I decided that the best thing to do was to agree with him and try to get rid of him.
“Just so. Those are my favorite kind of Black Ones.”
“Dark Ones.”
“Sorry.” I cleared my throat and tried to sidle away. “I think I’ll just—”
Ben evidently wasn’t having any of it. He followed after me, giving me a look of much consideration. “There are only two types of Dark Ones, Io—redeemed and unredeemed. My father is the latter, naturally.”
“Naturally.” I wondered if I dashed into the big main tent if he would come after me, or if I could lose him in the crowd that was starting to gather.
“Although he did love my mother. In his own fashion. It was only afterward that he lost the ability to feel any such emotions.”
“Well, you know how it is with Dark Dudes—that happens.”
He stopped me by taking hold of my arm, swinging me around to face him, his eyes narrowed on my face. “You do know what a Dark One is, don’t you?”
“Of course,” I lied, giving him what I hoped was a serene smile. “They’re . . . um . . . They live a long time, and they . . . uh . . . hang out at fairs, and . . . er . . . do other stuff like . . . urm . . .”
“Being vampires,” a female voice said behind me.
Eyes wide with disbelief, I spun around to find Fran smiling over my shoulder at Ben.
“Sexy, sexy vampires,” she added with a little sigh of pleasure.
Panic hit me then, hard and hot in my gut. I looked around wildly for an escape, throwing to the wind my desire to photograph Imogen. There was no way on this green earth I was going to spend any more time with people who thought they were three-hundred-year-old vampires!
“Io, let me introduce you to my ghosts. They’re Vikings, and although they’re supposed to be in Valhalla, they claim they were sent back to help Ben and me with a little project—”
I didn’t wait for Fran to finish her sentence. I bolted, wanting nothing more than to escape the insanity that suddenly seemed to possess me.
Katie MacAlister, Sparks Fly: A Novel of the Light Dragons
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